Like a 7th Grade Girl's Tennis Serve: Slow, Out of Bounds, and Pulling Balls Out of the Skirt

Greetings Zayniacs!  If that post title means nothing to you, it means you don't watch Happy Endings, and for that, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Alright, enough shaming, let's get on to the February premieres!  No fuss, no muss!

February 3
Superbowl XLVII
Elementary: This isn't really a premiere but if you watch this show, make sure to set your recording on Sunday to go way past the end time.   

February 4
Monday Mornings: This is a new show on TNT that from what I can tell, deals with M&Ms (morbidity and mortality conferences) at a hospital.  It goes without saying with the subject matter, but this will be a very heavy and dark show.  However, you have actors like Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, and Jamie Bamber in it, so I'll be giving it a try.

February 5
Emily Owens M.D.: Series Finale.  I wanted this show to be better because I liked the people in it but I thought the writing was a little sloppy to me.
Smash:  There has a been a lot of talk about the goings on behind the scenes of this show in between seasons.  We have all new showrunners, along with a lot of cast changes, mostly good.  There was enough good about season 1 that I'll be watching season 2 and hope that the changes they made, bring out the good and remove the bad.
Tosh.0: In all honesty, parts of this show have started to get really tiresome.  However, stupid people are still funny and it's a good way to wind my brain down before bed on Tuesday nights.

 February 7
Community!!!!!  After delays and terrible promotion, the little show that could returns to Thursday nights to make the world a better place.  I've heard generally positive things about the episodes that have been shown to critics and I'm confident that I'll still enjoy it, despite the departure of Dan Harmon.

February 8
Touch: I didn't watch more than the first episode of season 1 but they apparently tweaked the show so if you were a fan, hopefully you still will be after the premiere.

February 10
The Walking Dead:  This season has absolutely rocked my face off this year and I can't wait to see how the back half plays out.  I couldn't be more pleased by the pace and twists.
Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome:  If you were a fan of BSG but was disappointed with Caprica and The Plan, then you'll want to watch this to restore your faith in the universe.  However, it will destroy what little faith you may have had in SyFy because they did not pick this up to series.  They also cancelled Alphas...and we're going to move on quickly from that before I turn this post explicit.  Anyways, watch this if you were a BSG fan, it's good.

February 13
Survivor: Caramoan - Fans vs. Favorites:  Skeptical cat's skept-o-meter is reading off the charts for this one.  The "favorites" they brought back are generally people that I loathe.  I've never seen the word favorite used quite so broadly.  I assume that means that they took a poll of the 5 lowest IQ Survivor fans and asked them who they liked.  I'm very disappointed in the cast, especially after my favorite season in a while.
Southland:  I honestly did not know this show was still around.  I've always meant to go back in watch it because it's supposed to be very good but that's very far down my list of to-watches unfortunately.

February 14
Zero Hour:  ABC must have a ton of confidence in this show to premiere it on Valentine's Day.  That or they assume that anyone who watches this show that's part National Treasure, part Davinci Code, part LOST will not have dates and be free to stay at home, watching this premiere. It has Dr. Green from ER but every preview I've seen for this show just makes me want to go watch National Treasure instead.

February 17
The Amazing Race:   After the incredibly disappointing finish of last season (the ONE TEAM I didn't want to win out of the final 3 of course, did win.  Sure they were nice enough, but the other teams were better), I'm hoping this season has a good cast to get invested in like this year and that a better, more deserving team wins.  From what I've seen of the cast though, I'm not super optimistic.

February 19
Cult:  This show looks weird and I don't completely know what to make of it.  It's a show, about a CW show that has developed a cult following....literally.  It seems almost too meta for its own good.  I'll probably watch the pilot just out of curiosity, but The Following is happily filling my very small interest in crazy cults.
Body of Proof: I don't watch this but I think some of my readers do, so hear you go.  They've retooled (again) this year with some cast changes and a shift in focus to more high profile event cases.

February 21
Suits: Season 2 finale.  I thought we had more episode on the back end so I'm sad it's ending this quick.  However, any bit of content I get from this show, I will take gladly.

February 24
Academy Awards: I'm not terribly interested in watching it this year but if you are, there ya go.

February 26
Golden Boy:  This flashback driven show about a police chief reminiscing about how he rose quickly to prominence doesn't sound terribly interesting to me but it does have Chi McBride ( Boston Public, Pushing Daisies) who I really enjoy so I may watch the pilot.

February 27
Psych: Bolded only because this show has been off the air for far too long.  After a slightly lackluster season, I'm hoping this season can bring back the greatness.  This season will include a Clue homage complete with the actors who played Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlett, and Professor Plum.  Also, a 2-hour musical episode.

And that does it for February ladies and gentleman. 

Before we go, Friendly Reminder that The Americans premieres to night.  The reviews have been solid and I'm really looking forward to it.  Hope you enjoy!

Happy TV Watching!

Another Year, Another Metric Crap Ton of TV!

Greetings Zayniacs!  As you may or may not have noticed, I haven't posted a blog in quite some time.  This is partially due to work and partially due to the fact that I burnt myself out like crazy last fall.  A large amount of disappointing television mixed with a bunch of other junk made for an exhausting back half of 2012.  However, I am back from 2 4 day weekends in a row, rested, revitalized, and ready to tell you about what you've got coming your way TV-wise in 2013.

I'm going to break January down by day with what is premiering, new and ending shows will be bolded.  As far as when Fall shows start back up again, I'll leave that to your DVRs.  However, if you're just super awesome exciting about a show and want to make sure your moronic DVR doesn't miss it, say so in the comments and I will get you the info.   Alright, off we go!

Last night
 Parenthood (whoops! guess I should have done this yesterday)

Tonight
Nashville - Recap Episode If you're at all interested in jumping on the Nashville train, this recap episode is the place to start.  After a rough beginning, this show is turning into a solid guilty pleasure show with good music. 

January 6
The Biggest Loser:  I only started watching a couple seasons ago and last season kind of wore me out so we'll see how long I last this time around.  2 hours is long time to keep my focus on weight loss.
Downton Abbey:  I've only ever seen the first episode of this show but I like it and I will eventually watch the rest.

January 7
The Bachelor 
Switched at Birth
Bunheads - Season 1.5
The Mob Doctor - Series Finale (Never made it past the first episode, especially after I saw it wasn't long for this world)
Deception - Honestly, I don't know a ton about this show other than a cop infiltrates a rich family she used to know when her friend in that family turns up dead.

January 8
Pretty Little Liars - Season 3.5
The Lying Game
Cougar Town - Yes I know Cougar Town isn't new but it has moved to TBS so I wanted to highlight the change.  Also, you should all be watching this show.
Justified

January 10
1600 Penn - Despite the fact that the previews for this comedy about a dysfunctional First Family look relatively dumb, the reviews haven't been horrible so I'm going to check out an episode or two.  Now that I How I Met Your Mother has been renewed for a 9th season and will mostly likely be cancelled off my DVR by the end of the season, I may be in the market for a new sitcom.

January 11
Banshee - New show on Cinemax from the guy that brought you True Blood.  I think it's about a con man that somehow ends up the sheriff of a small town.  It sounds like a mildly interesting concept but the trailers did not grab me, plus, I cancelled my HBO/Cinemax and probably won't renew it until Game of Throne is back.

January 13
The Golden Globes - The only reason this makes the list is because Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are hosting and the 10 second promo I saw got rewound twice to laugh at it again.
Girls
Shameless
Enlightened
House of Lies
Californication

January 14
Being Human
Lost Girl
Continuum - This new show on Syfy follows a cop from the last 21st century, Rachel Nichols (Alias, Star Trek), who gets sent back to 2012 to chase down some criminal who somehow made it back in time.  The concept is interesting and the reviews have been decent so I'll give this a shot and see if I have a new sci-fi companion to Being Human on Monday nights.
The Carrie Diaries - This 1980s-set prequel to Sex and the City follows a young Carrie through high school.  Despite pretty solid reviews, I'll be passing on this one.

January 16
American Idol - The additions of new judges make me want to watch this show less, especially when those judges are Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey.  Also, Randy is inexplicably still a judge.  How is that possible?
Archer
Suits - Season 2.5 - WATCH THIS SHOW!!

January 18
Fringe - Series Finale - Fringe, we say farewell to one of the best sci-fi shows of recent television.  I hope you go out in a way befitting your awesomeness.

January 19
Ripper Street - New BBC series that takes place around the time of Jack the Ripper and I believe follows the team attempting to catch him.

January 21
The Following - One of only 2 new shows to get my pre-premiere endorsement.  Yes, I know that turned out less than great for Revolution but I'm trying to get back my credibility.  This show follows an FBI Agent (Kevin Bacon) who is called back to confront a serial killer (James Purefoy) he caught about a series of copycat killings.   This series will be tense and dark and hopefully, good TV.

January 22
Parenthood - Season Finale
Private Practice - Series Finale
White Collar - Season 2.5
Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan - This appears to be Crocodile Hunter, if the Crocodile Hunter were played by Charlie from LOST.

January 23
American Horror Story - Season Finale
Necessary Roughness - Season 2.5

January 24
Last Resort - Series Finale

January 25
Spartacus: War of the Damned (Final Season)

January 28
Dallas

January 30
The Americans - This is the second show getting my endorsement. Keri Russell (Felicity, Waitress) and Matthew Rhys (Brothers and Sisters) play two Soviet sleeper spies in American during the Cold War.  This show looks to be a great spy thriller with some fun action.  Keri Russell kicks some guy's head through a wall in one of the previews.  Plus, it's airing on FX so being a cable show, instantly gives it a better shot at not sucking.

January 31
30 Rock - Series Finale (It's time)
Do No Harm - This appears to be a Jekyll and Hyde thing that looks mildly interesting.  I'll probably give it a shot but I don't have high hopes.  This will be the Mob Doctor of NBC I think.

That's all for January folks.  I'll be in a couple weeks to give you a rundown of February premieres.  I may pop in sporadically to give my input on new seasons and new shows but it won't be with the kind of regularity I had in the fall.

As always, please leave any questions, comments, or cheap shots below and I will respond.

Happy New Year!         
      
   

I'm Not James Patterson, But I Do Okay.

Greetings Zayniacs!  It has been a really long time.  Life has been kicking my ass, mostly in a good way.  However, that means I have not been able to spread my ever-wise TV opinions.  Obviously I’ve watched a ton of stuff since my last blog post so we’ll start with the few new shows the premiered last week and then get into some highlights from the last week and a half. 

Real quick, we have our first two cancellations of the season.  Made in Jersey got first honors by being cancelled after only two episodes.  It’s shocking, I know.  Today, the second one bit the dust.  Animal Practice is officially canned with Whitney taking its place in November. 

Arrow:  A solid premiere with a lot of potential.

Nashville:  A decent show but I think I’d built it up a little too much in my head.

Chicago Fire:  Trite and predictable.  Skip it.

Emily Owens, M.D.:  Despite really wanting to like it considering the cast, I’m just not completely sold yet.

Vampire Diaries:  A really solid start to the season.  Hopefully that quality continues tonight.

The Walking Dead:  Wow, just an amazing premiere and you all should be watching.

Castle:  On course to have its strongest season yet. 

Once Upon a Time:  Speaking of strong seasons, this show is easily in my top 3 this year so far. 

We’ll start with these for now and maybe get to more later.

So first out of the gate, we have Arrow.  I had fairly high expectations for this show going into it.  I kept hearing really good things about it and the more I heard about how many comic characters were going to be making appearances I got excited about a show that seemed poised to be the kind of DC Universe show that Smallville flirted with being several times throughout its run.  Thankfully, I was not disappointed.  I thought the show did a really good job of introducing the characters and giving us a solid base to build from.  The action sequences were fast paced and well-choreographed.  The main actor did leave a little to be desired but that kind of stuff can improved if you have a good world to live in and a solid writer behind you. 

The second episode improved on the show greatly.  The fight scenes were still great but I thought the tighter focus on Ollie and Dinah (I refuse to call her Laurel, it’s freaking Black Canary, just call her Dinah) helped out the pace of the story a lot.  I also really liked seeing a long look at the formation of a Bruce Wayne-esque playboy persona.  We got it very briefly in Batman Begins but I think this show is going to explore the toll that kind of duality can have on someone.  In Batman, he’s stated several time that Bruce is his mask and Batman is who he really is.  I think Ollie still views his Arrow persona as the mask and so when he has to put on another mask as Ollie, it’s hard for him and Stephen Amell did a really good job portraying that in his face.  I look forward to seeing how they deal with all of this in later episodes. 

I was completely prepared to call Nashville my biggest disappointment of the new season.  Thankfully, I watched the second episode and I’m glad I did.  The difference, to me at least, was night and day.  I thought the premiere seemed really scattered and packed with storylines I don’t necessarily care about.  The soapy elements were kind of out of control and I like the more defined conflicts of this episode with Rayna and Juliette vying for Deacon and Gunner trying to convince Scarlett to record the demo.  I still really don’t care about the political storyline and it feels like a waste of Powers Boothe’s time.  It also helped that I enjoyed the songs a lot more this week.  I thought that besides the last song of the episode (which was incredible), the premiere’s music was very underwhelming.  Don’t get me wrong, the soapy elements are still there but the levels were much more tolerable. 

Chicago Fire is bad.  There’s really not much else to say.  Despite a generally solid cast, the characters are flat, the writing is stilted, and the plotlines are overused and poorly executed.  This one doesn’t deserve a second chance. 

Emily Owens is a very conflicting show.  The actors are very good but the writing feels like it was done by a teenage girl in some spots.  I understand the analogy of being an intern at a hospital being like high school but do the characters have to act like teenagers?  It feels like a waste of their talent.  With lines like, “my nemesis is being particularly nefarious”, I’m not sure how serious they expect me to take the show but then we have a plotline with a character giving the news to their mother about stage 4 pancreatic cancer.  It just feels a little all over the place.  I’ll give it another shot but unfortunately it’s in a very busy time slot for me so this may get cut sooner than it normally would because it’s competing with Go On, Happy Endings, Don’t Trust the Bitch, New Girl, and The Mindy Project, all shows that have impressed me a lot more than this show did.

Vampire Diaries opened solidly.  I’m glad they didn’t find a way to bring Elena back to life because that just may have been stupid enough to get me to quit watching.  However, human characters are becoming more and more scarce on that show and I feel like they do need to hold on to a couple.  Jeremy is the usual damsel in distress so he’ll probably stay human but Matt seems more and more like he’s filling the role of the heart and conscience of the group so I hope they go more into that.  I wish Klaus would have died but they unfortunately wrote themselves into a corner and now we’re stuck with him.  I can only hope that they find something interesting for him to do this year instead of constantly being verbally menacing without any action to back it up.

The Walking Dead should teach a class on how to write an amazing premiere.  The pace was non-stop and the body count was off the charts.  I couldn’t even give you a ballpark of how many zombies died in that episode.  I was initially skeptical that there was a time jump but I can’t argue with the really fun results of the team being such a cohesive unit now.  The push into the prison in the phalanx formation was amazing to watch.  I don’t want to say anything else too spoilery in case some of you haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet but I have to say that I’m now extremely excited about this season.

Castle continues to knock it out of the stinking park every week.  Putting Kate and Castle together might be the best thing they could have done for this show.  The writing is faster and smarter than ever and the jokes are all landing.  There were several moments of the episode that I rewound just to laugh again.  I couldn’t be more pleased with the season and I look forward to seeing how the crap hits the fan when Ryan lets it slip that he knows.

Once Upon a Time really found a way to change their show for the better.  There was a certain LOST-ness to it the way they did flashbacks last year but thankfully, they’ve added the dual present storylines as well now and it has helped out the pace significantly.  The biggest issue I had last year was that in the middle of the season, it really started to feel like they were treading water but there is none of that this year.  It feels like they have so much story to get to and I can’t wait to watch them do it.  The character moments are all excellent and Snow and Emma’s talk in her could-have-been nursery was very touching.  The other refreshing aspect to the show is the way characters are reacting to each other.  Sleeping Beauty was being a whiny, irrational hooker this week and instead of coddling her, Mulan told her to stop being a baby and suck it up.  I appreciate that.

Unfortunately, that’s all for now kiddos.  I’ll try to get to some more thoughts some time tomorrow.  In case, my workload doesn’t lighten, next Tuesday brings us the season premieres of Happy Endings, one of my top 3 comedies on TV right now and just keeps improving, and Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23, which had a shockingly solid start last year.  James Van Der Beek playing himself was consistently hilarious and the chemistry between the two leads is promising. 

Hope you all enjoyed and as always, please feel free to leave your thoughts and questions in the Comments section below.  Have a Great One and Happy TV Watching!

We Were Supposed to be Watching Swamp People!!!

Greetings Zayniacs!  It’s been a little while.  Did you miss me?  One quick piece of news and then on to the recaps!

Community, which was set to debut on October 19^th has been pulled from the schedule.  Basically, NBC wants to spend their marketing dollars on promoting the shows on Monday-Wednesday so they can try and save the abysmal ratings of Animal Practice and Guy with Kids.  However, they admitted that they would like to keep them in their back pockets in case they need scheduling changes.  Translation: We know Animal Practice and Guys with Kids are awful shows and are already planning to ship them to Friday and burn off their episodes and premiere the equally odd pairing of Community, a quirky and intelligent show, and Whitney, a formulaic crap pile that should never have gotten a second season, on Wednesday Nights in the winter.  In conclusion, it sucks that we will have to wait for more Community, but this probably means they will be pulled back from the brink of the Friday Night Death Slot.

Alright, onto the highlights from the past several days:

666 Park Avenue: All I watched was the premiere from the 30^th and it was exactly as awful as I thought it was going to be.  Removed from my DVR.

Raising Hope: The premiere was okay with few laughs.  Unfortunately, I don’t have time for only a few laughs.  Removed from my DVR.

Supernatural:  A solid premiere with some interesting questions.  Sam needs to stop being a giant wuss right now though.

30 Rock: A decent premiere.  Jack and Liz continue to make me laugh but Kenneth’s girlfriend is getting on my nerves.

Glee:  A sad episode that I feel should have had more impact on me than it did.  However, Glee’s first ever live performance delivered in a big way and I’m so glad they chose to do it that way.

Once Upon a Time:  Continues to deliver in its second season as allegiances shift and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

The Good Wife:  Another solid outing despite one really disappointing storyline and something involving two fingers and an ice cream cone I wish I could wipe from my memory.

Family Guy:  Much better than the premiere but still not great despite the fact that I wholly support any skewering of the Nielsen system.

Partners (two weeks):  This show is starting to grow on me.  Again, very sitcom-y and over the top but I had several laugh out loud moments last night (see post title) which is more than some veteran comedies are providing nowadays *cough* How I Met Your Mother *cough* so it stays on the DVR for now.

Castle (two weeks):  Any reservations people had about the show going bad after the couple got together can rest easy now.  This season has continued the pattern of excellent characters and fun dialogue.  However, I figured out the doll thing last night pretty much as soon as he gave it to the captain.  Usually they do a better job of diverting my attention from the reveal.

Revolution (two weeks):  Continues to be a solid enough show to keep my eyeballs.  There’s just something that feels predictable about the individual episode plot points that make me wish we could spend more on the interesting mystery arc, and less on telegraphed switcheroo of Danny saving the bad guy just to have the bad guy throw him against the wall and handcuff him again.  (also, I find it amusing that “switcheroo” does not activate spell check)

Let’s expand a minute on Glee.  The episode was good and the reactions and conversations surprisingly in character and mature, despite one huge gap that I’ll get to in a second.  I felt emotionally satisfied by the two relationships that had definitive closure.  The two that were left open-ended were more irritating to me.  Santana and Britney had a really sweet scene but I was never that invested in their relationship and now maybe we’ll get less comments about scissoring.  Finn and Rachel needed to end.  Their relationship dragged the show down considerably last year and I finally started to like Rachel this season without Finn so I’m glad they ended it and logically it makes sense.  She’s making something of her life and he’s directionless and needs to get his crap together before he tries to share his life with anyone.  Will and Emma seemed to be thrown in simply because all the other pairing on the show were fighting so why not.  There was zero closure on their issue which makes it more frustrating but they were singing the final song with the other couples that did break up so what the heck. 

Now onto the section of the show with both the high and low moment quality wise.  We’ll start with the low.  Blaine wouldn’t cheat.  That seemed to come out of freaking nowhere.  To maybe flirt with someone and possibly kiss would be one thing but to hookup and, seemingly, have sex?  That’s just a tiny bit extreme and very irritating.  However, this seemingly out of character decision led to one of Glee’s best moment since its beginning, a live piano version of Teenage Dream.  The amount of emotion Darren Criss put into that song was incredible.  The barely contained emotion behind his singing were pretty great to watch.  Unfortunately, Blaine and Kurt’s storyline was also given zero definitive resolution which I’m guessing means they’ll be the couple to get back together but my interest in that will last maybe one more episode without a lot of movement.  In closing, I thought the fake rapture thing was actually kind of funny, despite the ridiculousness of it all.

Sadly, after the initial glow has worn off, a few cracks are beginning to form in my love of Revolution.  There was just a lot of stuff this week that didn’t sit completely right with me.  For one, killing off Maggie was not earned.  She was the most grounded of the characters but killing her off so soon does nothing but provide the extremely predictable motive for Miles to stay.  Of course he wasn’t going to leave, he’s top billed on the cast and there’s no reason to follow him solo if he’s just going to go wander the land like a nomad.  We start getting very sad and heartbreaking flashbacks for Maggie and then after she get’s stabbed, you know she’s done for.  If LOST taught us anything, it’s that if you form a deep connection with a character through flashbacks, watch out, the Grim Reaper’s a coming.  Then, the aforementioned plotline of the bad guy that has Danny getting pinned and about to die, needing Danny’s help, conveniently right after having a conversation with him about mercy and how is Dad was so great. 

There were a couple other niggling things but overall, I just expect better from Eric Kripke.  He’s too good to be falling into so many tropes of the genre.  One of the things I really liked about Supernatural is that they never played for keeps when it came to the brothers.  Yes, there were always in mortal danger but they never played it for anything other than momentary suspense.  Of course Sam and Dean aren’t going to die, because they’re your only main cast members.  The few times that big things happened, like Dean only having a year to live before demons came for him, it was a great season arc.  We always assumed he would just find some way out of it at the end of the season so when we watched him get viciously mauled and killed by hell hounds, that was genuinely shocking.  However, before the end of the season, we’re shown a shot of Dean in hell, yelling for Sam.  Obviously he’s going to get out but the question that stuck with you over the summer was “how?” and “what would the cost be?”.  Then of course, the beginning of next season started the angels arc and it was all uphill and awesome from there. 

I will continue watching Revolution because there is still some good there and I have faith that it can and will improve, but my skept-o-meter is powering up on a few of these things.  Also, there was seemingly lightning in the storm last night…huh?

That’s all for right now but I’ll probably have some more thoughts later.

This week, we’ve got a few highly anticipated premieres.  For starters, Arrow is premiering at 7pm on Wednesday on the CW.  I have extremely high hopes for this show.  This could just be setting myself up for disappointment but I have been hearing pretty great reviews for it as well which makes me think my hopes may actually be met.  With guest spots already booked for characters like Deadshot, Deathstroke, Huntress and most recently, the Royal Flush Gang, I look forward to seeing a show that has such unfettered access to DC’s stable of characters.  Next up, we have Nashville, premiering Wednesday at 9pm on ABC, another show which I have high expectations for and have heard nothing but good things about so far.  Connie Britton is an amazing actress and I can’t wait to see what she can do in this role.  I’m not a huge fan of modern country but pieces I’ve heard so far sound good and the show will seemingly have a fairly decent mix of original and covered songs.  Lastly on Wednesday at 9pm on NBC, we’ve got Chicago Fire.  It looks to be essentially a weekly version of Backdraft.  I liked that movie and a few of the cast members are solid so I’ll give it a chance to impress me.  Cautious optimism when it comes to this show. 

In its 4^th season premiere on Thursday Night, we’ve got The Vampire Diaries.  I urge you to look past its stupid name and realize you’ve got yourself a really great supernatural show.  The third season was a little disappointing in regards to its main arc and a villain that lacked real punch and threat, but I’m hopeful that they may have learned from their mistakes and this season could be great again.  The ending of season 3 certainly opened the door for some interesting storylines.  Lastly, premiering at 8pm on Thursday after Vampire Diaries is Beauty and the Beast.  This stars Kristen Kreuk of Smallville fame as a cop (yeah, I checked out at this point too) and some unknown actor playing a tortured, brooding dude who has some kind of monster side to him.  I have less than zero interest in this show and I most likely will not even watch the pilot.  That may change, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.  However, I want you to be informed.

Have a Great Day and Happy TV Watching!

Night 11: Ogres?!?!.....RUN!!!

Greetings Zayniacs!  Well congratulations you lazy bums.  Looks like Unknown wins a fabulous prize…because no one else even tried to answer.  He’s not even right!!! 

Let’s get to the TV.

Fringe:  Great way to kick off the final season.  I think it was really ballsy for us to just jump right back to 2036 but hey, the only people still watching at this point are the fans. 

Doctor Who:  Yup, I teared up, just as expected.  Curse you Stephen Moffat. 

The Amazing Race:  A solid start to the season.  No team came off as completely insufferable like several of the teams last year, most of whom ended up in the finale somehow. 

The Good Wife:  Wow, what a way to kick off the new season.

Once Upon a Time:  Rocked my freaking face off.

Family Guy:  Eh, an okay episode.  Not too many laugh out loud moments

Revenge:  Didn’t disappoint.

There’s only two people that read this that I know of that watch Fringe and I’ll probably be discussing it with them individually so unless someone speaks out in the comments (not likely, I can’t even tempt you people with prizes), I’m just going to pass on a more detailed review.

Ditto Doctor Who.

Over the past couple years, I’ve realized that I do like some reality TV, but it has to have some kind of competition involved and have minimal “reality drama”.  One of the reasons I disliked last season of The Amazing Race was because a team from Big Brother caused so much unnecessary drama that it became tiresome to watch.  However, in the premiere, I don’t see any teams that will cause it on the level that those two did.  There will of course be the same level of screaming and mental breakdowns that we all know and love on the show but there’s a fine line for me. 

The Good Wife is a show I’ve been pushing for a long time now.  I watched the premiere 3 years ago out of curiosity and liking Josh Charles (Sports Night) and Matt Czuchry (Gilmore Girls).  What I stumbled into was an extremely well acted legal show that focused more on plot and character arcs while maintaining a secondary, yet still entertaining case of the week.  The cast continues to impress me and the guest stars of this show have been nothing but stellar.  This year will be no exception.  Nathan Lane, Kristen Chenoweth, Maura Tierney, and Amanda Peet are just a few of the actors who have signed on this year, most for recurring roles.  I cannot stress how much I love this show.  Most of the problems I had with the pacing of last season were solved when I re-watched the season on DVD.  Apparently, it was CBS’s moronic airing schedule and not the actual show at fault for not pulling me in as much as previous years.  Hopefully, the show will have a more consistent airing schedule this year and we can enjoy another well-written and expertly-acted year.

Once Upon a Time had every reason in the world to fail.  It was about fairy tale characters that got moved to the real world with no memory of who they used to be.  However, we would still flashback to their fairy tale lives where the world was largely created as CGI environments.  Despite all that, the first season became the #1 new show of last season.  The show did stumble around a little bit in the middle of the season but I thought they really finished strong.  The other concern I had about the show was that, being run by LOST writers, they would fall into a similar trap of building mysteries and plotlines without ever resolving things.  I thought the curse would last for a long time.  Thankfully, I was very wrong and the curse was broken in the finale.  They all remember and in the final scene of the season, Rumplestiltskin brought magic to our world.  I couldn’t wait to see where the show would take us.

Warning: Full Spoilers for last night’s episode follow.  You have been warned.

So we start off with a regular guy in New York City going about his day.  It starts raining and his window is still open.  He can’t get it closed and then a bird flies in and drops a postcard from Storybrooke with one word written on it, “Broken”.  My theory is that this is Rumple’s lost son Baelfire and he just had to wait for the curse to break before he could send a message out.  Back in Storybrooke, we get the reunion we’ve waited a year for.  Snow White, Prince Charming, Emma, and Henry are united all knowing who they are.  Ginnifer Goodwin acted the crap out of that scene and I had watery eyes 5 minutes into the episode.  (I appear to have been very emotional this weekend.  Perhaps because I can’t get a simple comment out of 95% of my readers…but I’m not bitter)  I’m glad that we didn’t drag this reunion out because there was plenty of tension to be had with Emma having a really hard time getting past the fact that she’s spent her entire life searching for them and they’ve been here the whole time.  Granted, it’s been against their will but that emotional baggage doesn’t just disappear.  Later, I liked when Charming and Snow were watching Emma walk up and Charming mutters, “don’t push it Snow”.  Snow acknowledges this only to then immediately tell Emma that they “need to talk”.  I think there is nothing but greatness to come out of all these interactions now that they know who they are. 

In our fairty tale story this time, we get the awakening of Sleeping Beauty by Prince Phillip and his odd companion.  She’s told she’s been asleep for a year.  Their kingdom looks in shambles and why prince and princess suck face for 10 minutes, the companion takes a look around and is blown back by some kind of creature emerging from the ground in a blast and attacking.  After the prince fends it off, the companion is revealed to be Mulan and the prince is marked for death by the wraith.  In Storybrooke, we get to the parallel story of Mr. Gold using the newly restored magic to summon the wraith to suck the Evil Queen’s soul, effectively killing her but still leaving her technically alive to fulfill his promise to Belle.    

Seeing Regina team up with The Swans (the Whites, the Charmings?  I don’t know what to call them) was really entertaining.  What I found really interesting was Emma apparently having the magic, no pun intended, touch when it came to getting the Mad Hatter’s hat to work.  Apparently, an unpleasant side effect was Regina getting her, seemingly, full powers back.  Emma and Snow fall through the portal to oblivion for some long overdue mother/daughter bonding.  Back in fairy tale land, Phillip tried to be heroic and go to his death to protect Aurora and Mulan.  They followed him however, only to watch him die.  They returned to the place where Aurora was awakened and the truth comes out.  While she was technically asleep for a year, their portion of the kingdom was somehow unaffected but frozen in time when Regina cast the curse 28 years ago.  However, about a year ago, around the time Emma showed up in Storybrooke, time started up again in their kingdom.  There’s apparently a safe haven with more people that they’ll be heading to together.  First though, they hear a rustling in the rubble where the wraith came from.  It’s Emma and Snow!

This premiere gave me everything on a character and plot level I could have wanted.  We got the family reunion, we got new twists, and new mysteries.  When news of the new characters this season started trickling in, I was curious how they would all come into play.  When we met Aurora and Mulan, I assumed that we would meet their counterparts in Storybrooke during the episode and they would become recurring character there where Snow White would form an elite task force of ass-kicking princesses like in Shrek.  However, they have no counterparts because they’re still in fairy tale land!  I really liked this twist and then pairing Snow and Emma up with them should lead to some interesting stuff, particularly, the title of this post.  I like that magic works differently in our world and seeing Regina try to use her powers and nothing coming out was awesome. 

So who was the guy in New York?  Who is Dr. Whale’s fairy tale counterpart, because Charming doesn’t recognize him?  How will Emma and Snow get back?  Will Regina take over the town by force now that she has her powers back?  Personally, I can’t wait to watch and see the answers to all of these questions.  Best of all, I have confidence that they will be answered in a timely fashion!

Unfortunately, Revenge is going to get the short end due to my extended review of Once.  The premiere was very good.  We picked up pretty much every plot thread at its logical next step.  Our big flash forward mystery this year is “who is the dead body on Jack’s boat?”  I’ll be curious to see how the season is plotted out this year.  Due to the initial 13 episode order of Revenge, that was when they initially planned the Fire and Ice party to happen.  However, they were popular so they got their full 22 pickup early and they pushed the reveal back a couple episodes and then moved the plot for the rest of the season forward from there.  Since they know they have 22 episodes to work with, will that mystery last all season or will we get a similar setup with the big mystery serving as a closing of the summer and a jumping off point for the rest of the season?  Future weeks may have a longer look at Revenge as opposed to Once.  It will depend on the level of crazy of the episodes. 

Alright, we’re starting to wind down a little bit on premieres.  This week, there are only 4.  On Tuesday, Raising Hope, which I’m considering not watching this year and Hart of Dixie, which I do not and will never watch. On Wednesday, Supernatural premieres and I couldn’t be more excited.  Despite a lackluster finale to a decidedly mediocre season, the more I hear about what’s coming, the more excited I am.  On Thursday, 30 Rock premieres its final season.  It’s time for it to go.  I just hope in can go out on a higher note than last season.  Why am I telling you about the whole week right now?  I’m not sure how much I’ll be writing this week.  Starting now, this will probably be a weekly to semi-weekly blog.  If an episode of something melts faces, I may come on and write a blurb, but there will not be daily rundowns of everything I’ve watched.  If you’re disappointed, angry, joyous, or slipping into a depression spiral over this news, let me know in the comments (right…) and I would be happy to continue.   

I hope you have all enjoyed a more extended look at premiere season this fall and I may be back for something similar in the winter.  We’ll see.

Have a Great Day and Happy TV Watching!

Competition and Prizes!

Greetings!  Just for fun and to try to lure you all into posting comments.  I'm going to run a little competition.  The game is: Name the Show where the Title of my last 5 posts came from.  You get one set of guesses and we're going on the honor system for not googling.  The first person to post in the comments with all 5 correct will win some sort of prize. 

So get to it!  Deadline is Sunday Night!  Go!

Night 10: Becky, Can I Get a Xylophone Flourish? ...No?

Good Morning Zayniacs!  So we’ve all survived another week of premieres, in my case, barely.  I’m going to start with a recap of what’s going on this weekend in TV because I’ve got family in town so there’s pretty much zero chance of me being able to write a blog on Sunday.  Tonight, we’ve got the final season premiere of Fringe.  The network decided to give them a 13 episode season to wrap up their storylines and I couldn’t be more excited to see where it all ends up.  Saturday, we’ve got the premieres of The Clone Wars, Green Lantern, and Young Justice, along with the new reboot of TMNT, if you are so inclined.  Also, the fall finale of Doctor Who will probably have me teary-eyed as we bid farewell to the companions of the last two and a half years.  On Sunday, we’ve got a lot going on.  We have the season premieres of Once Upon a Time (preceded by a season 1 recap if you’d like one), Revenge, The Amazing Race, The Good Wife, and Family Guy.  Also, we have the series premiere of 666 Park Avenue.  So…big weekend everyone!

So last night I did watch a couple things from previously in the week but then didn’t watch a couple things like Elementary, The Office, or Up All Night.  Let’s talk about what I did watch though.  Stay tuned until the end of the blog for a special section.

Vegas:  I liked this a whole lot more than I thought I would.

Last Resort:  A really interesting premise with some amazing talent.

SNL:  Jay Pharaoh is awesome, the rest….eh.

Big Bang Theory:  A disappointingly mediocre start to the season, with a “what the crap?” ending. 

Glee:  More good than bad which is more than I can say for the last couple seasons.

X-Factor (Wednesday):  I’m burning out fast despite some entertaining moment.

Grey’s Anatomy:  An odd choice as a follow-up to the finale but really good regardless.

Parks and Rec:  Solid episode despite relying on awkward humor of which I’m not a huge fan.

So let’s talk about Vegas.  This show is set in the 60s and I think it really benefits from that choice.  It keeps it from feeling so much like your typical procedural.  We didn’t have a montage of people giving meaningful looks to inanimate objects in a lab while a rock song played.  We also didn’t have Super Zoom that showed us exactly what was embedded into somebody’s corpse.  I have to give a lot of credit to Carrie-Anne Moss.  That woman is versatile.  She played Trinity, a leather-wearing badass, and you believed every second of it.  Here, she plays a tough but still fairly feminine ADA and pulls it off with equal success.  She was definitely my favorite part of this premiere.  Dennis Quaid, Jason O’Mara, and Michael Chiklis all did good jobs as well.  This was an interesting premiere with most original take on a procedural I’ve seen in a while.  The production value is really solid and the period work was great.  This show will probably get cut from my DVR eventually just because it’s not “must see TV” for me.  However, I would recommend you try and see if it is up yours because it’s a well-made and well-acted show that will probably do very well.

ABC has been marketing the crap out of Last Resort which makes me think it cost a fortune and they’re really trying to make sure it does well.  Thankfully, I don’t think they have much to worry about.  I thought the Pilot was excellent.  I was really surprised how many good people were in it.  I really only knew about Scott Speedman (Felicity) and Andre Bragher (Men of a Certain Age).  We also had Bruce Davidson (X-Men), Autumn Reeser (No Ordinary Family), Omid Abtahi (Sleeper Cell), Robert Patrick (The Unit), Jessy Schram (Falling Skies) and Dichen Lachman (Dollhouse).  Thankfully, ABC was not marketing a bad show.  I thought the Pilot was really interesting.  A nuclear sub out near the middle east picks up a SEAL team with no idea what happened.  Later, the sub is given order to fire their nukes at Pakistan.  They receive this order in such a way that they assume something must have happened to DC.  When they check, nothing appears to be wrong so they try to verify the order.  All of sudden, a missile is heading right for them and sinks them to the bottom of the ocean, they get the sub running again and then realize that it was an American missile.  They find a nearby island with an missile warning system and take it over and are now poised to face off with the US.  It was a fast paced and really tense hour and I hope they can keep up that level of quality storytelling.  I’m really curious to see where they will take the show on a week by week basis.  Will we have a threat of the week or will it be a more drawn out arc.  I personally hope for the second because something this big feels like it needs to be told on a continuing basis without trying to wrap things up at the end of each episode.  Unless it drops significantly in quality, I will be tuning in to this show for a while.  Unfortunately, their ratings were not stellar so we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed that in a world where Two and a Half Men is popular, well-made shows like Last Resort can somehow survive. 

Big Bang Theory was really odd for me last night.  I expected to like it a lot more than I did.  I was really excited for the new season since I thought last year was their best yet.  However, we got the character paired off into their couples with very little interaction between the group.  I usually like Penny and Leonard but they were acting like toddlers.  Amy and Sheldon’s “romance” has never been my favorite part of the show.  Bernadette and Howard still delivered though.  When did Howard become one of my favorite characters?  I couldn’t stand him in the beginning.  So, is Raj gay now?  I’m confused. 

Glee made me like Sarah Jessica Parker.  I’m angered by this.  Why’d she have to come and actually be entertaining and slightly heartwarming?  I was perfectly fine as my main reference to her being Family Guy’s comment about her looking like a foot.  Normally, I can handle Glee’s ridiculous 180s with their character but for it to happen in under 5 seconds was a little much.  Brody says, “I’m not interested in more, just friends” and then leans in for the kiss and I’m assuming more if Finn hadn’t knocked on the door.  What…the…crap.  I tried to stick up for Brody last week when everyone thought he was creep but if you’re going to pull crap like that, I can’t do anything to help you.  The songs were not as great this week.  I love Tears for Fears as much as the next guy and I like Blaine’s voice but that was just filler, plain and simple. 

X-Factor had a couple of funny things and maybe one singer that I liked.  This two hour block was just too much and I already had to DVR it in non-HD last night because I had too many things recording. 

So I finally got current on Grey’s Anatomy over the summer with a free month of Hulu Plus.  I always had to wait until Netflix released the previous season and by then the season had started and I wasn’t recording.  However, I’d heard about the death in the finale and I wanted to try to get current this time.  Of course, since I put in that effort and had to still sit through commercials on Hulu despite the fact it’s a paid service (if I’m giving you money, you don’t need ad money, so don’t make me watch commercials you morons) Netflix posts the new season well in advance of the new season this time.  Anyway, the premiere jumped ahead at least a month from the finale and the characters are a mess.  This was definitely a depressing episode with hit after hit.  Another main character died, two were seriously altered, one permanent, the other…we’ll see.  It looks like next week, we’ll be going back to the actual crash.  I find this a weird choice to show us the aftermath and then show the event, especially considering there could have been some interesting twists to show.  However, the only thing I can think of is that there will be better character stuff to show the decisions that led to the consequences we saw last night.  I don’t know.  I’m glad they’ve thinned the herd a little.  We have a new batch of interns with some solid actors like Tina Majorino (Veronica Mars) and Gaius Charles (Smash from Friday Night Lights).  Overall, I thought it was a solid premiere and I’m curious to see where we go from here.

Parks and Rec was solid yet again.  However, I’m not a huge fan of “funny because it’s awkward” and that’s most of what we got from Ben this week.  However, it did have a good ending and April threatening the douche with a melon baller was awesome.

So, that brings us to our special segment.  I’m cutting shows right now.  I tried to set the new recording for October 10 and I have 11 recordings that night, and two conflicts, one of which is Arrow not recording right now.  This is unacceptable.  I’ve been more lenient this year because I cut stuff really early last year and I ended up regretting a couple of them, specifically American Horror Story, Grimm, and Person of Interest.  So I’ve been compensating a little this year by being too lenient with crap.  Well it’s time to thin the herd so as I type something to cut, it’s being deleted from my series recordings.

The New Normal:  You should have gone two weeks ago but I kept hoping you’d give me something to look forward to and you just kept getting worse. 

Animal Practice:  There was literally nothing funny about the episode I watched this week and everyone else hates you too so I’m not going to invest any more time into something that has zero chance of survival.

Guys with Kids:  Go back to your late show Jimmy Fallon and leave the sitcoms to people like Modern Family.  Despite one solid comedian, this show is painful to watch.

Brickleberry:  The League and It’s Always Sunny will be back now filling my quota for offensive comedy.  Also, they’re both much funnier than you were.

The X-Factor:  This is easily the biggest cut but the entertainment/time suck ratio is way out of whack and now that it’s interfering with better shows, it has to go. 

That’s all for now but we’ve got a few others on thin ice.

The Mob Doctor:  I still haven’t watch the second episode but your ratings were abysmal and you’ll be cancelled any day now.

Vegas:  A great show, just not enough to get me to spend an hour with you every week.  Maybe the second episode will knock my socks off.

666 Park Avenue:  I know it hasn’t premiered yet but I can just feel that it’s going to be bad.

Ben and Kate:  I want to like it but I just don’t know that it’s going to be enough.

Elementary:  I watched the first 5 minutes last night before going to bed and I’m not optimistic.

The Neighbors:  While I was surprised by the premiere, I’m not hopeful about sustained funny.

Alright, that concludes our week.  I’ll see you all back here on Monday morning for a report on as much as I could watch on Sunday night.  I’m predicting now that it will be Once Upon a Time, The Good Wife, and maybe Revenge. 

Good Day All and Happy TV Watching!